Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

He had started as an account manager, one of twelve men who constituted the core of the private banking operation, each handling a group of clients. After several years, on the day following Klaus Junior’s baptism, Lemmy became chief accounts manager. And last year, Armande had promoted him to vice president. These promotions had been earned with hard work and successful client development, especially with Mideast oil sheiks. In addition, the presumed succession to a young and capable son-in-law projected long-term stability and continuity to the clients of the Hoffgeitz Bank. And lately Lemmy’s control over the bank’s technological metamorphosis placed a great deal of power in his hands, bringing him ever closer to the ultimate goal of the mission that had brought him into this family in the first place.

Paula kissed his neck. She avoided his cheeks as he had not shaved this morning. Between weekdays at the bank and Sunday’s church attendance, Saturday was the only day he could dress casually and skip shaving. He had joked with Paula that the skin of his face needed a break, though in truth this habit was his private tradition-a link to a distant, secret past of observing the Jewish Sabbath.

“Coming about!” He turned the wheel, and the boat changed course into the wind. The waves slapped against the hull. Paula helped him lower the mainsail and drop anchor.

They sat in the back of the boat around a table that was bolted to the deck, and Paula served sandwiches of brie and smoked ham. She and her father shared the rest of the merlot.

Lemmy sliced his son’s sandwich in half. “Did you tell Grandpa about the new technology lab at school?”

Klaus Junior shook his head while drinking orange juice.

“What new lab?” Armande cut a corner from his own sandwich and forked it.

“We got a whole room full of computers. We’re going to sand the Internet.”

“ Surf the Internet,” Paula corrected him.

Lemmy laughed. “You don’t want any sand in those computers.”

“Computers everywhere.” Armande sighed. “No escape. What about books, writing-”

“But Grandpa, you gave them to us!”

“Don’t talk, Junior,” Paula said. “Finish eating first.”

He chewed faster.

Armande stroked his grandson’s hair. “Patience. Patience.”

When he finally swallowed, Paula handed him a napkin. “Now you can talk.”

“My teacher said that the computers were a gift from you. He made everyone sing a song about generosity.”

“I arranged it with our Dutch suppliers,” Lemmy said. “A donation to the school. It cost us very little, especially with the tax credit the bank will take on it. I made it in your honor, Father. I hope you don’t mind.”

Seeing his grandson’s pride, Armande Hoffgeitz glowed. “Why should I mind? Our family has supported education for many generations. It’s our tradition!”

*

After a few hours of sleep, Gideon and Bathsheba left the Paris apartment and drove to the gas station near Ermenonville. He brought an audio edition of Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle. They settled down to wait, the narrator’s voice filling the car.

Shortly after noon, while biting into a tuna sandwich, Bathsheba spotted a green Peugeot 605, identical to the one they had been looking for, the darkened windows rolled up. “Go!” She tossed the sandwich out the window and pulled a handgun from the glove compartment. “It’s them!”

“ Put away the gun.” Gideon turned on the engine.

He stalked the Peugeot for ten miles in dense highway traffic until the driver rolled down his window. “Take a look,” Gideon said, accelerating. “ Only a look!”

Bathsheba tilted the visor so that the makeup mirror reflected the view from her window. As they passed by the Peugeot, she said, “Bummer.”

Glancing sideways, Gideon saw the occupants of the car-a couple in their eighties and a large schnauzer.

She dropped the handgun back in the glove compartment. “Cost me that lousy sandwich. I’m starving!”

He took the next exit and drove back to the gas station.

*

Elie Weiss walked to a nearby cafe and settled to read the Financial Times, sip coffee, and nibble at a croissant. On his way back to the apartment, he paused to watch people go around the barriers into the synagogue. It was Saturday morning, he realized, the time for Sabbath services. On a whim, he entered the synagogue.

The sanctuary was cavernous, with beautiful wooden seats, painted-glass windows, and stone arches carved with biblical scenes. A cantor stood at the podium in a bejeweled prayer shawl and top hat, his deep baritone reaching every corner as he sang Adon Olam, Master of the Universe. The congregants, in formal suits and skullcaps, repeated each line in a chorus of singing voices, the ancient Hebrew words pronounced with a French accent. The women behind the see-through lace partition sang as well.

This was very different from the little synagogue of his childhood in rural Germany, near the Russian border, where Rabbi Jacob Gerster, Abraham’s father, had led the service in a pleading voice, his head covered in a black-and-white prayer shawl. In the shtetl, the windows had been small and opaque, the benches roughly hewn, and the congregants bearded and hunched as they begged the Master of the Universe to protect them and their families from the cruelty of the anti-Semitic gentiles. There had been no colors at his childhood synagogue, only black and white. Mostly black. And not much singing either.

He opened a prayer book, but his eyes were misted, blurring the square letters and tiny vowels. And despite decades of loathing God, who had allowed the Nazis to kill his family, Elie’s lips pronounced the words, “ Be’yado afkid ruchi – In His hand I entrust my soul, asleep or awake, God is with me, I have no fear.”

*

The black 1942 Rolls Royce waited at the dock. Gunter held the door for his boss. Armande Hoffgeitz kissed Paula on both cheeks, hugged Klaus Junior, and shook Lemmy’s hand. “See you tomorrow at church,” he said before Gunter shut the door.

Paula’s Volvo rattled over the cobblestones as it crossed the Limmat River over the General Guisan Quai. Lemmy glanced at his son through the rearview mirror. “Nice sailing, Junior.”

Klaus Junior saluted.

Paula said, “That was a nice initiative, donating those computers.”

In the back seat, the boy asked, “Can I also tell Grandpa about the baby?”

They looked at each other, and Paula said, “What baby?”

“I heard you talking yesterday.”

“There’s no baby,” Lemmy said.

“Not yet.” Paula blushed.

Their home sat on a grassy knoll in the Eierbrecht suburb of Zurich. Armande had bought it for them when Klaus Junior turned two. It had five bedrooms, a swimming pool in the back, and a six-car garage.

As soon as the Volvo stopped, the boy ran to the Porsche. “Papa! Come!”

“I promised him,” Lemmy said. It was a classic 1963 Porsche 356 Speedster in dark blue. The insurance company had recently appraised it at a price equivalent to a modest home in a good neighborhood. Lemmy had bought it two years earlier from the widow of a deceased client. The original engine enjoyed a new life with a set of dual Solex carburetors. It had a new soft top and a powerful Burmester sound system. The elaborate anti-theft alarm had been installed by a Dutch specialist from Amsterdam, an old friend who was also responsible for the security measures surrounding the new computer systems at the Hoffgeitz Bank, as well as the secret video surveillance cameras, which Lemmy alone could access.

He was about to get into the Porsche when Paula gripped his arm, pulled him closer, and kissed him on the lips. “Don’t be long. You have important work to do.”